Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Rabbit, Black, Donought, and Puka

What do all of these have in common? They are all a type of hole. Those on the left are "Puka" (pooka) shells. Commonly found on the beaches of Hawaii, they are actually the remains of sea snail shells. Ground and tossed by the sand and waves they are polished and smooth; radiating a warm luster. The hole ("puka" in Hawaiian) is a naturally worn area on the top of the shell.

I discovered something important about myself recently. Sitting with this pile of puka shells in front of me, endeavoring to sort shells into incremental sizes, I had embarked on a project that could possibly take more than one day. This was not good. I realized right there and then that although I love a crafty project, I seldom have the patience for it to last beyond a 6 or 8 hour span.

So, replicas of the Sistine Chapel ceiling (7 years to paint. 10 years to restore) as well as an attempt to carve anything bigger than a chop (see July 22 entry) are out of the question. Once started they would end up in the black hole of discarded projects; never to be finished and/or admired. Don't worry, I did assemble all of these wonderful shells into a rustic necklace in under 5 hours. Too bad I'm going to disassemble them due to the fact that they didn't meet my stringent standards of aesthetics (it turned out ugly). Does re-assembling them into a different necklace just add ticks of time on the already-started project clock? I hope not or I will chuck them down the nearest rabbit hole and despondently eat a bucket of donought holes.

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